I was never good at portraits.
Bone structure
killed the feeling.
The jaw.
The eyes.
The terrible need
to make someone
recognizable.
I did not want
to measure his face.
I wanted to survive
what it had done to me.
So I did not draw him.
I drew the woman.
Lowered.
Covered in the grey
I could no longer keep
inside my body.
She makes me shiver
because she is not asking
for anything.
Not an answer.
Not a hand.
Not a man
to turn around
and say her name.
She simply stands there
with the weight
made visible.
And I understand her.
Because there are things
that live inside us
until art gives them
somewhere else to go.
I needed an image
before language
kept me hostage.
Before one thought
became another thought
became a room
I could not exit.
So I gave it no face.
No mouth.
No tired eyes
to forgive.
I gave it a woman.
And somehow
that frightened me more.
Because she was quiet.
Because she was beautiful.
Because she looked
like the part of me
that had stopped waiting.
Mari Sánchez Cayuso 
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